Moral judgments serve group cohesion, not abstract individual reasoning

Evidence

In light of the intergroup competition that has marked so much of human history, commitment mechanisms delivered by religious prosociality begin to make sense. They collectively facilitate the sacrificing of self-interest for the common good, a hallmark of prosocial religious groups that binds individuals—often complete strangers—into cohesive moral communities. As Jonathan Haidt shows, much of morality is rooted in social intuitions in the service of gluing individuals together to form “sacred” communities. These moral binds make collective but anonymous social life possible and successful in competition with rival groups. This idea contradicts a long line of thinking in psychology and philosophy, which asserts that moral judgments are the product of abstract decision-making among isolated, rational individuals. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 465

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s cross-source framing: moral binds (religion as cohesive moral community) are the mechanism the fumi-e ritual destroys in the novel — matches Baumard et al.’s partner-choice framework. — connects to: Group immersion and ideological training erode individual moral decision making in perpetrators. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 136